Ode to poet overflows

The annual show of the Blueskin A & P Society held at
Mr Bland's paddock at Waitati on January 8. - Otago
Witness, 22.1.1913. Copies of picture available from ODT
front office, Lower Stuart St, or www.otagoimages.co.nZ

The annual gathering of the Dunedin Burns Club, and of
Scotsmen generally, to celebrate the 154th anniversary of the
birth of the poet Burns was of such dimensions that it more
than filled the Garrison Hall.

The management had evidently not anticipated such an
overflowing attendance, and was sorely put to it to find
seating accommodation for everyone. Forms and chairs were
brought into the hall and quickly taken possession of, and
when the concert began the audience was sitting right up to
the stage, with a few still standing. The stage had undergone
a good deal of ornamentation and decoration, and presented
quite a handsome appearance.

The Burns Club choir, which seems to be constantly growing,
occupied a place on the stage, the ladies having donned
tartan sashes in honour of the occasion. The national
instrument of Scotland always appeals powerfully to Scotsmen,
and when the Dunedin Pipe Band played an opening selection
the audience became enthusiastic, one gentleman in the front
remarking, ''That's the music you will hear when you get to
Heaven''.

• Greymouth: Learning of a parliamentary trip to Central
Otago, the chairman of the Westland County Council (Mr Joseph
Grimmond) yesterday telegraphed an invitation to the Hon. W.
Fraser to extend the tour to Westland. Mr T. E. Y. Seddon, M.
P., and Mr Ormond have agreed to meet the members of the
party at Lake Wanaka and escort them over the Haast Pass and
up the coast to Hokitika.

It is hoped that so useful an excursion can be arranged,
affording as it would a fine opportunity for many of the
members of Parliament to see something of South Westland and
its possibilities when served with a through line of railway
down the coast and linked up with Otago Central - a railway
project which was once the dream of the late Right Hon. James
Macandrew, and which afterwards had the approval of the late
Right Hon. R. J. Seddon as a scheme for speedy realisation.

• A correspondent of the Press writes: - A remarkable
discovery was recently made concerning the hatching powers of
the sparrow. Not long ago Master Crispian Saunderson, of
Wright's road, Hillmorton, climbed up to a sparrow's nest,
extracted the eggs, and in their stead put a hen's egg, not
thinking the sparrow would sit on it; but, to his great
surprise, on climbing up, after 22 days, he found that a
chicken had been hatched, which is now running about the
yard. Another egg was placed in the nest, and every time the
boy climbs up the tree, the sparrow flies out, leaving the
egg quite warm. - ODT, 25.1.1913.